Hammock Snapshots are short flash fiction pieces, accompanied by an original illustration that aim to capture a moment, a feeling or a fragment of something without the pressures of longform writing. The series began on Instagram and now also features on our site.

There is a mango thief on the loose, nibbling ripe-sweet, sunlight-warmed mangoes. The monkey is new to the house but the mango tree is not: it has been a home and a library of memories for long. In this strawberry ice-cream colored house, a very old woman reminisces about that day years ago when she ate one mango after another, secretly keeping a stone aside to plant in the sprawling garden outside.

The garden has shrunk but the tiny sapling has grown and spread, encircling the house like a hug. Generations have feasted on the trees’ mangoes every summer, some napping in its shade, and others have sought and found refuge in its welcoming branches. The people are long gone now but she sees and hears them still. The afternoon breeze generously threads in and out of the leaves, making the curtains quiver, spilling cool upon the floor.

The mango thief becomes a trapeze artist in between the branches, stealing mangoes and sating his rotund belly, making the tree shake and tremble too. And for a brief moment, the old woman is young, so very young again, a summer of endless mangoes stretching ahead of her, one joy at a time.